PENSACOLA, FL – It’s been a quiet second half of 2025 for Bubba Pollard. An up and down season and a late summer crash at Toledo Speedway during an ASA STARS race sidelined Pollard for most of the fall racing slate, leading to a different approach to the Derby in 2025.
Teams typically ramp up their racing schedule leading into the Derby, testing every component of their program leading into the biggest race of the year. That’s what Pollard has done for years. That’s what everyone does. But 18-years into Derby competition, the cards have never completely fallen Pollard’s way. The man who has the most Blizzard series victories in Five Flags Speedway history has never found his way to the top step of the podium in short track racings most prestigious race.
That’s why this year’s new approach, albeit not entirely by choice, could be a breath of fresh air for Pollard as he searches for the centerpiece of what is an all-time great short track racing resume.
“We had the incident in Toledo where it broke my hand,” Pollard told Short Track Scene. “We had to only pick and choose some of the races we’ve been able to run, just kind of going to those places we were comfortable really. Just an unfortunate deal, just had to take a couple races off to get healed up and really I feel like put us in a better situation coming to the Derby, better prepared. So, we’ll see.
“We’ve had opportunities to win I feel like, had good cars. Some days it’s your day, most of the time it’s not. We hate missing races but yeah, it helps you. You always want to give 100% and be prepared when you unload, but it’s the little things, the details that sometimes get overlooked when you’re racing all the time and have to work a lot. Just exited to get the weekend going, I feel good about where our program is at right now. I think we’re peaking at the right time, I think we’ve got good speed and we’ll see if we can keep it going.”
Pollard brings an entirely new program to the Derby this year compared to years past, operating a full fledged VanDoorn Development Chassis program compared to the Senneker Race Cars team Pollard had become synonymous with. Pollard ran a one-off with the VanDoorn group at the Derby in 2020, but the last second collaboration didn’t go as either group would have hoped. This time around is different. It’s been a year-long effort to build to this point and Pollard feels they’re ready to reach the mountaintop.
“We’ve been working on it all year,” Pollard said. “We’ve had a lot more time. That other deal back in ’20 was thrown together and it wasn’t my fault and it wasn’t his fault. It’s just something that shouldn’t have happened, we just kind of got excited, got eager and put a deal together last minute, and we got last minute results. It’s one of those things, we’ve worked hard, Johnny [VanDoorn] and Butch [VanDoorn] and all their guys at the shop really work hard. We’ve done a lot of testing throughout the year and we’ve been good at times, been bad at times just trying to get familiar with the race car. This car is a lot different than I’ve been accustomed to.
“So I’ve had to lean on those guys, just get better and I feel like that’s what we’ve done throughout the year is just learn the racecar, learned to work together, … Just a lot different circumstances than it was the first time. We’ve got 100% effort here and you’ll be able to see what these guys are actually able to do.”
As previously mentioned, Pollard has found plenty of success at this racetrack, as his 25 Blizzard Series wins are the most in series history by a substantial margin. However, Derby week is a different beast, and it’s one that has always presented Pollard with challenges. Pollard was on the verge of winning the race two years ago before late race contact with Stephen Nasse took both drivers out of contention.
“It’s tough,” Pollard said. “I mean, there’s so many race cars. The weather changes, race track changes, there’s a lot of good cars. The technology is constantly changing, the tires are the biggest thing that changes. You just have to keep up with it. I mean, I don’t know what the right answer is to get a handle on it come Derby time but we just do the best we can. I feel like our program is in a better spot that where we’ve been coming into the Derby in years past. We’ll see, hopefully we have a good weekend, go from there.”
Pollard’s Derby-less resume is one that has been compared to that of Eddie Mercer, another one of the greats who waited 17-years before finally capturing the Tom Dawson trophy. Pollard, now beyond the mark of Mercer, is in uncharted territory. No driver in Snowball Derby history has ever started 18 features before capturing their first win, as Mercer holds that record at 17. Nevertheless, you can never count Pollard out as all records are meant to be broken. Who knows, 18 just might be the magic number for Pollard and VanDoorn this December.
